Mercury Cougar Wagon – Yes, Really!

Most people know the Mercury Cougar as a version of the Ford Mustang (1967-1973) or the Ford Thunderbird (1974-1997), although youngsters may only remember the hatchback Cougar, based on the Mondeo platform.

What many forget is that the 1977 through 1979 model year Cougar offered a full lineup with two-door, four-door sedan and wagon all based on LTD II (also the basis for the two-door-only Thunderbird). This was the end of the line for all of these large beasts (considered mid-sized in the 70s!), as they all moved to the smaller Fox platform for the 1980 model year. This was also the end of the 351 and 400 V8s (5.8L and 6.6L, if you must) in these cars.

Our subject car is blessed with beautiful faux woodgrain and the torquey 400 V8.  In Ford terms, that would make it a Country Squire, but Mercury called this a Villager, long before they had a joint venture with Nissan to build a minivan with the same name (often co-branded with Nautica, we must add).  I, your humble host, had the “pleasure” of occasionally driving my grandparents’ LTDII Country Squire with the 400 and can confirm that the torque moves this beast pretty nicely.

The claimed mileage here is 60K and the condition might actually back that up.  Perhaps the owners were too embarrassed to be seen driving this and didn’t think they could sell at a premium before hipsters.  Well, these are now oddly back in style; so the market is right!  If you need a spacious family hauler with no modern safety devices and poor fuel economy, this could be just the ticket and it’s a lot of car at $5K or so.  It sounds like we’re mocking this, but, trust us, this one’s tempting…

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Taylorville, Illinois, USA
$5,000 with ZERO bids, reserve not met, 6 days to go and $6,000 BIN price

This is basically the legendary LTD II with Mercury badges.  Does it get any better?

Tailgate is festooned with faux wood, as it damn well should be.

Yet again, this makes us miss full-color interiors.  The dark blue is – dare we say – classy.  Bench seat is a nice throwback and ensures this seats one more than you’d expect.  CB is an excellent touch.

Cargo area is massive and, if we’re not mistaken, hides rear seating – perhaps in tail-gunner position.

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This car is in near perfect condition. To the best of our knowledge the car is completely factory original. It has almost no exterior dings or scratches and very few of those. There is a small amount of rust around the interior facing of the rear wheel wells. The interior is all but perfect. This car was purchased by the Service Manager of the dealership to which it was shipped from the factory and has been immaculately maintained. We purchased it from him. It has been garaged all its’ life.

This is a classic in almost perfect condition.  It has no known drive train, running gear, or mechanical problems. The AC does not work but we think it only needs to be charged.  It drives and rides extremely well.  To our knowledge all parts are factory original.  Both the interior and exterior are all but perfect.  We have driven the car and would have no concerns about driving it anywhere.  It comes with a variety of filters and belts in the Motorcraft factory wrappers.  This car could be turned into a solid show car with very little work.